Broadband companies pocket £10m share to end rural web nightmare

Funding will allow them to pilot fixed Wi-Fi and satellite technologies

If you live in a remote part of the UK where fibre is still something that's listed on the front of a cereal box, listen up: the Government has announced the potential saviors to end your rural broadband nightmare.

Eight companies have successfully bid for the government's £10 million innovation fund, which will be used to work out what tech could be used to solve the problem of slow broadband in the most remote parts of the UK (and finding out how much it will cost).

While government department BDUK is aiming to deploy faster broadband to 95% of the UK by 2017, the successful bidders will pilot fixed wireless and satellite technologies, which could then be used to take superfast broadband to the remaining 5%.

In a blog post, Whitehall said that pilots will include a "social investment financial model" and a system of combining small rural networks to help tackle the hardest to reach areas.

The winners

Preparing to pilot fibre-optic broadband over Wi-Fi are AB Internet (which is rolling out to Wales and received £847,650), Airwave (North Yorkshire, £1,564,600) and Quickline (North Lincolnshire, £1,564,600).

Avanti, which received £885,640 funding, is to test a 30Mbps satellite broadband service to Northern Ireland and Scotland, while Satellite Internet, which received £175,125, will connect up Devon and Somerset.